Allotment Week - Day 8 - And Barbecue to name but two.

The late great Ronnie Barker used to do wonderful monologues to camera that were full of jokes and innuendos. He once did and advert which has stuck in my mind since then, and now any time we have a barbecue this phrase comes to mind.

It's really good to get out and meet people. Especially like-minded people at the allotments. we of course, brought far too much food with us so we ended up bringing in other allotmenteers to sit down with us, have some salad and a burger (both meaty and veggie) and have a good old chin-wag. The last time we had a good old cookup was back in 2018.

Now lock-down has lifted a bit we can meet up like this, and since the only place I have been able to go is between home and the allotment, this makes a really great change.

Although I'm still not feeling my best. I think I'm running a bit of a temperature and I hardly ate anything, just guzzled water. I suspect that there may not be many more updates before I have to return to work on the 1st.

Allotment Week - Day 7 - Setup for tomorrow

I'm not sure what is going on. I am feeling a little under the weather at the moment. I woke up this morning with a slight pain in my chest and whilst I was planting the sweetcorns I felt a little dizzy and had to rest. Also when I stand up I feel woozy and have on occasion had a mild "grey out". Now in the past I have suffered from low blood pressure and these symptoms do seem to fit that. Things are usually fine after a few days but i won't be doing anything strenuous for a while.

Anyway, here are some of the sweetcorns already planted...

I do have more, but they're rather small at the moment so they may have to wait.

In the meantime we need to get things ready for tomorrow. So tidy up, and table out.

Yeah, strenuous indeed. Looks like I won't be able to do that. Anyhow we'll see.

Allotment Week - Day 6 - No photos

Muggins here forgot his phone and left it at home, so no piccys today. However I did finally finish clearing the Sweetcorn bed, as well as two more spaces for Courgettes. I made a start into clearing the pathway between those beds and the woodchip/manure bays as well, but I was soundly defeated by the shear mess of couch grass roots.

Last year I put down newspaper and wood chip in an effort to counter the invasion. I have now come to the conclusion that it is just not worth it. The couch grass roots are still there. They kept on growing sideways rather than sending up shoots, and now, about 10cm down, is just a huge network of interlocking roots that it's like a mat. Trying to break through is almost impossible and is definitely back breaking. The use of woodchips is definitely recommended though as they gradually break down into good compost and hold a large amount of water in times of drought. More than that they offer a good home to fungal growth which works wonders on the produce.

But probably the biggest reason is that they do not compact so much in the London Clay soil and just a little loosening with a garden fork allows you to get at any rhizomes buried underneath. I think this will be the only way I'll be able to get rid of the dreaded scourge. Albeit with continuous action.

Allotment Week - Day 5 - Foxy's back!

We've been without a fox for a number of months now. The last time we saw a fox was about a year ago. So we were pretty happy when a fox blithely walked through the middle of our plot whilst we were working. We suspect he (or she! We're not sure) was a cub from last year. Certainly not one of the normal ones which we sadly haven't seen. But this one seems reasonably friendly and posed long enough for photos.

Even so, with a foxy distraction, the heat was beginning to get to us. We didn't get much done on the sweetcorn bed, but I did clear the remaining courgette bed of couch grass to allow for three of our plants that were sitting sweltering in the greenhouse to go outside.

Maybe tomorrow I'll finally finish up the sweetcorn bed and be able to plant it.

Allotment Week - Day 4 - Anatomy of a Thistle

Today I am digging the Sweetcorn bed... it's somewhat daunting.

In there are a whole slew of different weeds. Lambs Quarters (easy to pull out), some small thing that looks like a purslane but isn't (also easy to pull), couch grass (bane of my life), bind weed (bane No. 2) and Thistles!

Now the thistle is a tricky blighter. At the top are the flowers... fortunately I caught this just before they set.

Then there are the dreaded spiky bits. Let me tell you, these are not fun with thin gloves.

And down below is a tap root that wants to head deep, deep down. And this is where the problem lies. Because if you don't manage to get all of that damn root out, then it'll sprout up all over again. Case in point, I dug the thistles out of this bed a while back, but didn't get the whole root. So now they sprouted.

Well it looks like the final score is Thistles - 1, Me - nil. I was defeated in attempting to clear the bed. All the bending over to dig out the weeds made my back ache and my stomach feel somewhat queasy. 

Just about got half-way. I think retreat is the order of the day and try to marshal my forces to make another assault tomorrow.

Allotment Week - Day 3 - Rain stops play

I wonder how those beans are doing? Has the rain and wind pummelled them? Have the slugs and snails got them? Guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. Been a bit of a damp one today so I just haven't ventured forth to see.

Allotment Week - Day 2 - Has beans

So I tried planting out the Edamame back in April (as it said on the instructions). Bad move. The slugs and snails (and weeds) had a field day with them. Yesterday I dug over all the middle beds ready. Today, just a brief trip to the plot, but it's time to put the beans out.

Again it was the old toilet roll trick to get them going. Although I'm wondering how well they'll fare as a lot of the roots had grow out of the rolls and into the rolls adjacent to them. There was some root damage as I tried to prise them apart. Hopefully they'll be OK.

And as promised yesterday, here is the photo of the pink poppies... complete with bumblebee.

Tomorrow, I think I need to plat out the sweetcorn as it's getting rather tall... except the bed that it's scheduled to go into is worse than the beds I dug out yesterday, combined. Not looking forward to that.

 

Allotment Week - Day 1 - It's like Deja-vu all over again.

So I am forced to take holiday. I am carrying over the maximum allowed into my next year, because I haven't been able to take holiday. But that's pretty much the same for everybody.

Anyway, today is the day after rain. Yesterday (and a bit on Thursday) we had a torrential downpour, and boy do the weeds love it. So today I'm back to the same old thing... Digging weeds and beds and more weeds and...

I dug for a few hours until my back and legs started complaining. So I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but sufficient to start planting out some of the things in the greenhouse. The beds I dug were the failed Edamame ones from earlier in the year. Hopefully the replacements will be a little more robust.

But at least the Poppies are liking it. The Red and Whites are thriving around the compost bins.

And the Pinks are starting to come into flower in The Wife's flower bed. Guess I'll have to take photos of those tomorrow.

First strawberries of the year

 So today's sojourn to the allotment for watering showed that there were a large number of strawberries ripe and ready for eating. Guess the sunshine has brought them on.

Roll on the smoothies!

More pricking out

 Today it's the turn of the Aubergines.

This is the first time we've tried growing Aubergines at the allotment. Now like our other ventures, we were somewhat worried when we planted the seeds and nothing seemed to be happening for a long while. But then suddenly everything burst into life. So now we have 12 plants nicely potted on. Yeah, I mis-counted and had to go in search of additional pots.

Today was only a quick trip. The old "She goes shopping, and I go to the allotment". But even so it was just too damn hot. Instead of closing the greenhouse doors, I used some pallet as temporary doors to try and keep the heat down a bit. Large amounts of watering was needed. Hopefully they'll last until Tuesday when I can get back there.

By the pricking of my thumbs...

So the correct term, before it obtained such lewd connotations, is Pricking Out. And we have a lot of plants that are in dire need of just such an activity. First off we have the Chillies. After a very slow start I thought that we wouldn't have much in the way of chillies this year as nothing sprouted. But I suspect that it was the cold April that caused everything to be slow, and I was almost considering throwing out the tray of seeds are starting all over again. But when May started rolling round, things seemed suddenly trigger into action. And now I have a tray of about 20 seedlings all requiring their own pots.

After I had finished here, The Wife got to work clearing up. As you can see this task was done on a pallet balanced on the end of the flower bed. A bed which was growing more weeds than the afore mentioned flowers. So The Wife started clearing it to plant a few remaining flowers such as Calendular that we had growing.

Meanwhile I was still doing battle with the couch grass around the big beds trying to get a bit of space to start planting out some of our courgettes.

So I don't know if my thumbs are aching from just the digging or the pricking out, or maybe it's simply because in amongst all the grass were a whole load of thistles and my gloves are not the thickest (cheap Wilko gloves, £1 a pair) and the thistle spikes kept digging into me. I certainly don't need to be a great detective to figure this one out.

Digging, digging and more digging.

It's been another scorching hot weekend, and I am writing this blog entry on the Monday afterwards, because I was too damn exhausted to write anything at the weekend.

It didn't help that on Friday there was a long slow steady drizzle of rain that soaked everything and made the couch grass spring into life. It was too damn heavy to move stuff... especially the areas where the couch grass had settled. So you get the one and only photo that I took at the very start of the weekend...

Yeah, see all that grass? Well a lot of it is still there. But a lot of it isn't.

There are also some beds which have been cleared. Not sure if you remember the scruffy bed next to the compost bins? It had some rogue chard and beetroot in it, as seen in the top of the top photo. Well that has now been cleared too. And a whole load of other beds cleared. And the compost bin that's at the very front of the plot has been dug out and sifted.

My aching legs and back meant that when I got home on Sunday I just wanted to crawl into a bath and bed. But at least now there should be some decent soil and beds ready for the next lot of stuff that has to go outside.

We do keep on potting on some of the bits that we have in the greenhouse. Most notably the courgettes and tomatoes. But I think the chillies are next on the list for potting on... as and when I feel I could withstand the plot once more.

A hot weekend

 Well this past weekend has been a scorcher. After weeks of cold, miserable weather we finally got a but of sun. Time to get some of the seedlings potted on into a bit more comfortable surroundings so they can make the most of this heat.

First up, we have our Tomatoes. Now our Sweet Millions were not very good starting. Of about 50 seeds we only got about 4 to germinate. I blame the weather. But the Ailsa Craig and Money Maker seem to have done quite well for themselves. Time to sit down and get potting.

There are also some other things which need sorting out... such as the influx of weeds because of all the rain. The Bindweed is starting to rear it's ugly head and I've managed to dig out some veritable rope sized roots of the stuff. I really need to keep on top of this stuff this year.

The newly potted Toms are now residing in the cleared second greenhouse.

And it's at this point that I didn't take any more photos. The heat took it's toll on me fro all three days that I went. Saturday was potting Toms, cleaning greenhouse and weeds and we picked some of the Pak Choi for dinner that night. I must say it wasn't the best. It was almost bitter. I suspect that the plants developed the bitterness as a response to all the slug/snail infestation. I might have to get a new batch underway.

Sunday was just a quick trip whilst The Wife was shopping. All I did was a quick spot of weed control and made a load of pots from toilet rolls.

Monday saw those toilet roll pots put to good use in the new batch of Edamame. The first lot were put out a little too early despite them wanting out of their pots. They didn't seem to survive the cold and the wet. I guess thats quite a common thing, getting plants started too early so they have to get put outside and then they get caught in late frosts. It's happened before. Really need to learn that lessons and make a start later.

Anyhow, I'll be popping back in the evenings this next week. It promises to be a bit of a hot one and I need to keep an eye on things. Oh, and there are still some plants which need potting on, such as the Sweetcorn, the Chillies etc. There is always something to do down the allotment. And if I'm not dealing with the plants... then I'll have to deal with the weeds. It never stops.